Bring back door-to-door mail delivery: report

OTTAWA — A House of Commons committee is recommending Canada Post come up with a plan to reinstate door-to-door delivery in parts of the country that lost the service in the last year and maintain a freeze on the installation of community mailboxes.

The report from the Liberaldominated committee released Tuesday also says there is no need to reduce the number of days a week that mail is delivered, suggesting reduced service standards could accelerate the decline the corporation has seen in the number of letters handled.

The committee says that based on its hearings, Canadians are open to mail being delivered fewer than five days a week, but that “does not fit the business models of either Canada Post or its paying customers.”

Instead, the committee recommends increases in postal rates, muses about expanding Canada Post’s mandate to provide cellular services or broadband Internet, including email services or “the basis for a Canadian social network,” and suggests the corporation partner with e-commerce companies to increase revenues.

The president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) said thousands of homes would still not have door-to-door delivery under the committee’s recommendation because many addresses were moved over to community mailboxes in 2014 and early 2015. Mike Palecek said the union won’t be satisfied until every address that had doorto-door delivery gets the service back.

In a statement, Canada Post said it will study the recommendations in the report as it looks for major changes to keep itself viable. The statement also points to another issue that appears in the report, namely the “difficulty in finding common ground” on the issues facing Canada Post.

The corporation began reducing door-to-door delivery last year, arguing that it could save up to $450 million annually by moving five million more addresses to community mailboxes. The committee said Canada Post provided “weak” financial information to support the estimate.

The committee notes that 830,000 addresses have been moved to community mailboxes.